COVID-19: two of my stories you can share with your students because I own the copyright

Dear educators, thank you for all that you’re doing to assist your students during this scary and isolating time. Many of you have contacted me, asking if you can record yourself reading from my books. Here’s Scholastic‘s temporary relaxed policy on this, as well as a similar one from Pajama Press.

I cannot give you PDF files of my books.

kobzar

However, I own the copyright on two short stories that were originally published in my anthology, Kobzar’s Children. PDF files for both are posted below. Share them with your students. Print them off if you want. I do ask that you acknowledge me as the author and I’d love it if you let me know when you’ve used my stories.

The Red Boots: this was the very first story I ever wrote and it’s based on an incident in my father’s prairie childhood.

The Forchuk children: from left to right, my father Marshall/Myroslav (called Slavko in The Red Boots), Steve, Wally, Olga, Jean

The Rings: this story is set during the Holodomor, the intentional starvation of millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s by Stalin and the Soviet Union. This story is based on first person accounts and was originally a long sequence in an early draft of my novel, Hope’s War.

hopes
from 2001

Other resources? Check out these trailers for my books, but also the reading from Too Young to Escape, and me reading the first lines from a bunch of my favourite books.

Want to see how I’ve been spending my time in isolation? Check out my pysanky.